I know we've harped on this a bunch, but as I sit here looking over this weekends matchups and where Pittsburgh sits, it makes me sick to my stomach that one single play can have such a ripple effect.

If...(and goddamnit for saying it because I despise when fans do this...)...if...if...if Burnett catches that INT on that final drive by the Raiders, Pittsburgh is in the catbird seat instead of Baltimore or NY.

One gift wrapped, right-between-the-numbers, Ike Taylor~like dropped INT away from having their destiny in their own hands.

If we make a tackle on 4th and 10 against Cincy the first time...I imagine there's a ton of those, considering how many close games we've had.

That's the thing though, I don't like to count those, "if they made a tackle on that drive, or on that KO return, or on that series" what if's. Those instances are when an opposing team's player outplayed or made a better play than a Steeler player.

In the example I'm quoting, the pass was right there, on a silver platter. All Burnett had to do was catch the MFing thing. Squeeze the rock. Game over. Steelers win.

A million things go for you and a million things go against you in the course of a season.

Rarely do you get a year like last year, where almost everything breaks your way. And no doubt, 80% of the time, the ball bounced to the Steelers.

The difference was that we MADE a lot of our "breaks" last year, and created opportunities to get wins even when we didn't play great football. We managed to get the ball into Ben's hands at all the right times, and in all the right circumstances. The defense always managed to come up with the big sack or the big INT or whatever--even in the Super Bowl, when they did not play their best game wire to wire.

"Dreith said I hit Sipe too hard. I hit him as hard as I could. Brian has a chance to go out of bounds and he decides not to. He knows I'm going to hit him. And I do. History."- - - Jack Lambert, after referee Ben Dreith ejected him from a game for knocking out Browns QB Brian Sipe.